THE 2008 SACRAMENTO MAYORAL PRIMARY: BLANK IS THE NEW BLACK

The 2008 campaign for mayor of Sacramento, California.

Really, who gives a fuck?

I’m leaving that section of the ballot blank. The only reason I’m even showing up at the polls on June 3rd is to vote on Propositions 98 and 99. More about that in a moment.

But first, here’s my take on the prospective candidates, and why they completely neglected to win over my vote.

ADAM DANIEL – First off, he’s a self-described conservative. Next.

SHAWN ELDREDGE – Shawn actually came close to getting my support. Seems like a nice guy. Fellow Midtown supporter (note to out-of-town readers: the area of Sacramento in which I live, not the band.) Has some well-thought out and well-expressed views on what Sacramento needs. But if the Republican Party goes out of their way to endorse a mayoral candidate in a non-partisan election, something’s up. Scratch.

RICHARD JONES – Wants to increase salaries for teachers and firefighters. That’s nice. Otherwise, he seems like just an average retired guy who jokes that his wife will let him run for office, but won’t let him spend any money on campaigning. In a way, I envy Mr. Jones and hope I’m that together by the time I’m 73. Unfortunately, I don’t think that those qualities would qualify me for mayoral duties either. Thanks for playing sir. Let’s move on, shall we?

LEONARD PADILLA – I think that, with the scattering of Padilla campaign signs on lawns around Midtown, this guy may have a chance of being the reason that a runoff vote will happen in November. If this election was dependent upon the most entertaining candidate being the most qualified, Leonard Padilla would have my vote. But this is a city election, not “American Idol”, so fuck that shit. In the next spot, we have…

MURIEL STRAND - Wants to turn Sacramento into one big 'ol eco-village (read: hippie haven) with chickens running wild on the streets of Sacramento. Or something like that. Peace out. On to...

ROBERT DRUMGOOLE – Running as a write in candidate because a tree fell on his house and the structure had to get torn down. He claims that the city did nothing to help him. That sucks. Good luck with that. Hopping right along…

KEVIN JOHNSON – Speaking of running for mayor because you have a personal gripe with the city regarding your property problems… Cornel West, someone I respect greatly as an intellectual and scholar, is set to endorse Johnson for mayor. But, to quote West (from a Starbucks Coffee Cup saying - The Way I See It #284 to be exact,) “You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people, if you don't serve the people." Agreed. And as someone who can be described as “the people” (re: member of the proletariat), I don’t see Kevin Johnson serving me very soon, if ever at all. If West means the slumlords, developers and pork barrel dippers, then, yeah, Kevin Johnson would definitely love and serve. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the latter was not what West meant. See ya, Kev.

And that leaves us with the incumbent…

HEATHER FARGO – I can’t really find too much fault in Heather Fargo’s job as mayor of Sacramento, but on the other hand, I can’t really find too many reasons to vote for her either. Whenever I see her on the news I can remember only two things that she has expressed re: the city at large:

1. Downtown isn’t unsafe;

2. Downtown has some really cool places to eat.

Since I live in Midtown (which is definitely by any fair description safe – for now at least) and don’t get into fou-fou dining like Lucca (one of Arnie’s fave hangouts) or 4th Street Grille, there’s nothing I can hear in those statements that make me declare, “Yuh! Go Heather!” or something like that. She seemed to do a lot more in her previous role as a City Council member, so if there is anything Fargo’s accomplished in her years as mayor, it is demonstrating exactly how powerless and insignificant the duties of Sacramento’s mayor really are.

So there it is. Seven candidates, no oval dealiebobs marked by my precinct-provided Bic pen. But like I mentioned earlier, I will be showing up for the sake of the ballot initiatives, which are both simple enough for me to decide upon:

PROPOSITION 98 (Government Acquisition, Regulation of Private Property.
Initiative Constitutional Amendment.)

FUCK NO! This is a great initiative if you are a slumlord, but if you are a renter (like me,) you need to vote against this. Supposedly it protects property owners from government property seizure, but in reality, it has provisions written in to eliminate rent control , the fair return of rent deposits, and 60 day notices. Hopefully more renters than property owners show up and vote this dog down.

PROPOSITION 99 (Eminent Domain. Limits on Government
Acquisition of Owner-Occupied Residence.
Initiative Constitutional Amendment.)

HELL YES! This one will actually protect good property owners from the government taking your property for purposes of, for example, kissing Walmart’s ass in order to give them a location to build a new Supercenter in town. It will maintain purposes of eminent domain in order to do stuff like shut down crackhouses and tear down toxic houses contaminated by use for crank labs, and although it still keeps eminent domain powers for road and airport construction, how the fuck often does that happen? Exactly. So this proposition doesn’t screw over renters, and gives homeowners as opposed to corporate pigs protection.

So that’s my take on the ballot. That’s what voting your conscience is about: if you don’t support anyone running for the office, why would you vote for anyone at all? Because SOMEone has to hold the office? To me, that’s not a good enough excuse.

And don’t EVEN get me started on the school board campaigns…